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Encouraging sea exploration among children through gamification

Growing up in the mountainous area, I had always feel the personal closeness feeling to nature. Working on this project was genuinely an exciting one, as I believe in the need for us to inspire the young minds to pursue careers that will protect the mother nature.

Knowing the target audience are children who’re always looking for the next exciting things, I knew gamification is the way to go. However, as this is my first casual game to design, I consulted the advisor at MAGES to learn his observations of our products so far and tested the game mechanics with the team. The result -- was an engaging simple game for the children to learn that being sea explorer is cool and fulfilling.

Role

UX Designer

Client

OceanX Education

Duration

October ‘23 - January ‘24

Main Contribution

User Interview

Narration

Storyboarding

UI & Interaction Design

Usability Testing

Challenge

OceanX has extensive program offerings to engage the youth to learn more about sea exploration. Being a forward-looking company, they are also looking to utilise more virtual reality as a way to entice the youth.

How might we inspire the next generation to appreciate and pursue careers within the marine-related industries while inspiring them to explore marine sciences in a fun and engaging way.

Results

A short virtual reality based game that challenges the youth to explore the ocean and survey the marine fauna while being in a submersible.

8 fauna

featured on the game

2 apps

VR and Dome Deployments

120+

users playing the game

Understanding the Young Minds

As an elder sister, I’ve watched my siblings grow and gained some insight into how children in our target audience behave. Being young, they’re naturally curious and eager to dive into new and exciting experiences. At the same time, as they navigate forming their own identities, they often seek opportunities to learn and share knowledge as a way to gain social validation and recognition among their peers. With this understanding, and building on the client’s observations, here’s how our end users typically behave:

Unlike the typical projects I work on—focused on training and measuring its effectiveness—this project’s objective was to engage and captivate young minds. This shift in focus gave us greater freedom to think creatively about how to connect with the target audience.

Drawing from their behavior, I proposed a casual game format.

Additionally, casual games is a format celebrated for its accessibility, vibrant visuals, and fun mechanics, perfectly aligning with the client’s goal of inspiring an interest in marine exploration.

Marrying Game Mechanics and Constraints to create a Lore

Game mechanics varied slightly across many casual game. However, what speaks to the end users is usually the storyline -- also known as the lore in game. To engage young players and immerse them in the importance of marine conservation, the lore needed to be meaningful yet approachable, seamlessly blending with the game's mechanics.

To clearly communicate the game narration and interactions, I created a detailed storyboard. This not only helped align the team on the vision but also ensured consistency across the narrative and gameplay elements.

Using Gen AI to Produce Preliminary Art Direction

After gathering essential information about the game, I explored features that could give the Guide Scientist more personality and depth. This included elements like her skin tone, hairstyle, and uniform, tailored to reflect the region she represents and the context of the game.

As Iterating over 3D models can be time-consuming and labour intensive, I leveraged Generative AI tool (Dall-E) to expedite stakeholder’s the decision process.

Putting It All Together

Humbling Experience of Witnessing the Product Live

The game was showcased during an event, and it was incredibly heartwarming to see users engaging with it enthusiastically—especially as players kept returning to beat their previous scores. It was a rewarding moment to witness their excitement and competitiveness firsthand. This experience also highlighted the scalability of the game lore, which can be easily localized to different regions by adapting the fauna or the scientist character, making it versatile and universally relatable.

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